Best Graven Image Poems
In a chariot of fire in the sun
blew a pale horse and pale rider’s last breath,
and on your grave sings a boding raven
in the shadows of the valley of death.
Where no graven image rise from its bones,
only a cold wormwood wind on death row
pipes through the rushes beyond the tombstones
where time cut short above stood still below.
But far more does sound a haunting in me
as if your faint voice my ear passing through -
and I trapped betwixt next world and earthly
sit this day communing with God and you.
Yet I fear death itself I shall not mourn
when diviners blow its fiery flamed horn.
Written: July 1995
OBSESSION OF SOAPS
obsessed with the daylight hours
specifically the graven-image afternoon
like high place dungeon towers
calgon’s commercial didn’t “take me away”
but a clever string of soaps did the trick
yes ~ for three “wholesome” hours every day
like following a clever treasure map
i lived for “all my children”
Such lovely drivel and maple sap
for health’s sake visited “general hospital”
after all, i have only “one life to live”
where i delved into the incredible and impossible:
clever tales, like candles in tunnels
where danger lurks, and romance,
with abundant pleasures, funnels
stories old as time itself ~
they were my sweet craving
on a lovely built in shelf
kept me sane until they drove me insane
a drip drip of sand through an hourglass
i envisioned myself with false teeth and a cane
only when my husband and kids
began to refer to them as “my soaps”
did i realize my life on the skids,
and like a potion i’d been pedaled
did i remove the suds from my eyes
in my lightbulb-brain, it was settled!
who wants to see a gravestone:
“HERE LIES MY SPOUSE WHO LIVED FOR HER SOAPS”
7/21/2017
Contest - Obsession
*True so many years ago. I don’t watch them anymore :)
Perfection, is an evil lord
demanding ever greater tribute,
it wields a sharp and heavy sword
that pierces deep to persecute
I fear this liege, this graven image
there's no resistance to his wants;
no will, nor the amount of courage
can protect me from his evil taunts
Forgiveness, I may grant to all,
no act's too grave or sin's too much
and yet, no matter however small,
I dare not grant myself as such
Idealized, I must not fail
this thought's so manifestly flawed;
and yet, it does but so assail
my heart, my mind... my God
I immerse ...
nigh naked
in your keen and carnal insight ...
the rags of my inhibitions
strewn at my feet …
are my thoughts still my own
care and coil
or have you plucked those from my boughs
made ripe
the fodder for your dire divination?
peel the fruit, fresh
and slice it to your taste -
there is a neoteric bounty for your appetites
seasoned to sate
the desires of a goddess ...
laid bare
offerings for a graven image, pure
and devoured
as love's absolute oblation ...
thine.
~ 4th Place ~ in the "Mid-Summer Premiere Poetry Contest", Brian Strand, Judge & Sponsor.
Your honor I wish to state, with utmost rhapsody before the crescent azure, that my client is as white as a Lilly
was it fare that he died, a tender soul twenty one phases of the harvest moon
buried at the bloom of owls, bats to grace the occasion, ghosts to usher the procession, dogs to disguise as chief moaners
is it justified that the noble lad had to endure the disgrace of his anatomy, twenty strokes to the count to fulfill an accursed ritual
was it justified that my friend, left behind a park of wives sobbing behind the stench abounded streams, unleashing life to the ruins he called home
was my client an astrology to manipulate his destiny that drew him closer to the trigger, son of a gun he had no choice
did the cops drew in their hands, utmost monopoly on his life to pin him as easily as tapping a fly, the books of records think otherwise
am not a Marxist but truth be said that poverty and affluence unify in boxing duels, my friend was just but a soul, caught in the line of capitalism dynamism
was my friend born in the antiquities of an emperor, Shakespeare would tremble before the letters of his epitaph
was my client marooned in the lavishness of the middle class,Vincent van Gogh would dance before the master piece of his graven image
I don't believe in the tune of reincarnation but my client would obligingly accept, a second chance in whatever form, your grace shall offer
make him go back the statue of liberty, to enlighten mankind of the powers of democracy
allow him to return as the cutest kitten, to offer warmth to a broken heart
I have stated, I have mourned, not in desperation but in love, not to win but to exude the jury with truth, of the realities beyond these pearly gates, the day in life of a mere mortal,
my case rests,
from antiquity of the Peruvian Inca mountains
'til today's unsheathed bladed Java buttons clicking
the numbers add up to incessant discounting counting
to sacrifice our own graven image sown sickening
if she floats - she's a witch and frankly must die
if she sinks, well, obviously she's sufficiently pious
when down on the bottom, we can't hear her cries
of sacrifice, still, very little can get by us
filed and defiled is all the better all the while
as the former digits click off of our palms
fingers and toes, complete legs fall away, as do
whole heads mounting kill count without qualms
virgin girls, citizen children, soldiers of play
their sacrifice is for civilization after all
us, uh, i mean the gods, won't have it any other way
they must have their place on our wailing wall
the altar so sacred, so blood red royal
C-4 strapped around plain white-robed torso
from handlers who assure they have the will of God
sending heavenward, pink clouded supplication - more so
for the sacrifice of the body than of the soul
robed theocratic surgeons who cut off our noses
in a perceived attempt to maintain their control
of those around them that might be opposed to
notions that they need not explain themselves,
or that God demands carnage for reasons unknown,
that their actions should beget peace in our time
that they shan't pick up, to cast, the first stone
that we all could be better humans I suppose
if we sacrificed our pride, instead of our fear
if we worked hard not to be taken for a ride by
admitting things aren't what they might first appear
dunno, but if there is a god for us to pray to
then maybe we could pray to not be preyed upon
and sacrificed for that bloody old world view
time to cook up some whorled peas - and move on
© Goode Guy 2012-08-02
I heard an angel speak last night
and he said "write".------------------Elizabeth Barrett Browining
So I took my pen to mark his words.
No angel would I slight.
There’s a corner in the graveyard
where the small ones lie in death,
some torn from their mother’s wombs
before they’d taken breath.
Other dates show three short days,
or a month up to a year.
This is where the graveyard angel,
the most often will appear.
You will find her graven image
on the gravestones all around.
Older graves will have no flowers
to adorn the little mounds.
The grass grows with abandon
as it always has for years,
saturated splendidly
with grief-stricken mother’s tears.
But mothers, fathers, siblings die.
The graves could be forgotten.
God sends his graveyard angel
to guard each and every one.
She will be there to guide them
when that final trumpet sounds
and their souls are all transported from
those tiny little mounds.
By: Joyce Johnson 6/15/11
Won a 5th
For "Angels in Cemeteries" contest. Sponsored by Constance LaFrance
(Poetry) let it thicken as it stands.
Let it be beautiful, unharnessed verbal rage or
song or deed, or graven image set in stone, where
walls fell around some demagouge in
some ill-remembered time.
$IN
In our arrogance we place this
joyous thing in
chain$
We seek to give it rules and charter, duties and forms but
the ravenous beauty of our thinking has outsmarted us.
and,
much like pandora's discretion,
when the first man (Or Woman)
-chicken or egg get over it-
pressed his stick to dirt and made his mark he unleashed a
torrent that can never be held at bay.
(Poetry) will not be held in fief, and the
Box which was held by the daughter of Zeus
is
open.
And I for one am glad of it.
Let it light our hearts ablaze and temper our
might with frost, let
the last vista overlooking the plauge of perpetuity be
LOST
one short score and five ago
it wasn't so - that streams
flowed in airless wires
that Dolby heard symphonic
on hand phones was absurd
that art could be a part of everyone's day
meals smartly delivered - have it your way
cookies cooked on every chip
bits for sales cooked to look legit
who knew we'd get delivery
of anything we could want or see
how-to brain surgery on YouTube
all mind's desires blogged now denude
and the ****, oh the ****
so high-def, so hot and forlorn
progress, regress, no matter now,
not totally, but - it's just a mess
we made it, a mirrored graven image
like us, to carry on our lineage
rub-a-dub-dub, it's all over us
newness notions hopelessly scrubbed
it's really the same ol' us you see
trinity or the favored Menage à Trois
we'll always take it to the Nth degree
so type 'n' say your mind's eye's desire
the whole world web buys 'n' sells us entirely
© Goode Guy 2014-03-13
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee
http://www.npr.org/2014/03/13/289750726/its-been-25-years-since-the-world-wide-web-was-invented
http://www.npr.org/2014/03/12/289594960/a-very-special-proposal-anniversary-for-the-world-wide-web
http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/02/27/282965383/the-web-at-25-hugely-popular-and-viewed-as-a-positive-force
Grand basilicas
built to papal false idols
of graven image -
to apostate relics from
pagan Rome and Babylon!
Steal away the idol children
Work ‘em to death,
give them no pay
Carry their cries
on a plaintive wind
Pilfer their graven image mind
Then fill it with empty thoughts
of caste assimilation
Melting pot of Ag forged oars
had a fiery green blade muzzle shade
A laden, dragging metal sound made
on Independence Day shores
Bow wishful plow sweat parade
floated a Con-stitution charade
Sleight-of-hand stump rest speaking
Skin unlock plan
was auction heresy pulpit preaching
An Elmer Gantry shout
to the easy-picking pocket prey
Allow the stolen children
to veto believe
they can vote
the forced submission pain away
Give that captive audience
some fetter sugar cain —
Plantation toil saccharin
Bedtime stories of runaway glory,
sweet liberty lullabies
Cotton candy dreamland revision
of Emancipated lies
Printed mint tales of a mythical Abolition
be pigeon drop Prop-G:
Penny dreadful bales
of sharecropper Jim Crow caw con-dition
Sell them crass coined kleptocracy
Tell ‘em their slave residency
was merely indentured democracy
Pyramid-scheme toga villains
rob brazenly
Neo-pirate flags waving freely in the breeze
Steal away the vexed children,
who lazily
worshiped so gluttonously with pagan ease
Have the hex wards of the city-state
deliver hard labor unpaid ~ Such an unfruitful taste
Then tear tax their unproductive ways
Pickpocket tier demands
is how every kleptocracy is raised
Grifter chain-of-command
is Babel Tower iron tether praised
*Prop-G is my Ebonics shorthand for Propaganda
— Romantic Warrior
It’s a terrible thing to be treated
as less than human ... all should abhor
Considered only as beast of burden —
that’s the lying end of it, nothing more
Iron yoke was our neck collar,
leash was a throat chain
Valued sixty cents on a dollar,
man is a doggone shame!
We were oxen on a perpetual till,
work mules in a plantation field
Our sweat harvest was golden amber grain
of one hundred percent sob pain inhumane
On the wage scale of cloaked justice,
for our labor, we were given nothing
Every economy based on oppression knows,
slaves are beast of burden most profitable
Muzzled voices auction sold
in the free market as pack animals
Degradation of subhuman sorrow
made us feel less than whole
Wary buyers were merchant told,
slaves were worth their weight in gold
Bray truth load in the cargo hold:
Talking mules have a Three-Fifth soul
~
O, Shopper Queen, $$ bag Lady Liberty,
I pagan pray with measured uncertainty
Leaning hard on your graven image mercy
for sooo long has been spiked crown thorny
I do now toil realize, hence I speak Perseus bold:
The grind-stone torch you Medusa hold,
whose covetous flame be imperious cold,
has dollar burned a hole into my Three-Fifth soul
False Profits bought have emptied out
from these pockets of Forty acre doubt
Wavy trust carry not any anthem clout,
rest easy on full pay is plow turnabout
This I do believe, Miss Lady Liberty, from Times old:
Pyramid schemes have an expiration date bar code
400-years interest repaid of Redeem hope stole
has principally made whole my Three-Fifth soul
the conversations are rolled into the corners
stretching into a fifth dimension
perpendicular to all points
this is where i love you
curled back upon itself
unavailable to the eye
the physicist’s graven image
produced at energy levels
no longer on demand
counterfeited
lying useless on the floor
moments escaping
till you do
back into the visible spectrum
where the colored quarks
come to rest upon
a mask i have come to know
all too well
and given up all hope
of ever removing it
we chat in silence
the quietude in our pervading existence
is what we ultimately share
the empty spaces between galaxies
collisions that are temporarily ignored
a cosmos enveloped in its own existence
a life to be never seen
conjectures upon a table filled with mathematics
and nothing more
the weak force begetting pyrite
once radiant and full of promise
now lies a barren moonscape
awaiting expulsion, embers now ashes
fate in the coming winds
Fergus Falls 2000
What proud Americans see,
has been done before
Graven image glory ...
Mount Rushmore
Four faces carved into
a mountainside
South Dakota idols looks like
the one in southern Sudan
Mount Abu Simbel,
circa 1200 B.C.
Four Pharaoh figures
standing tall 100 feet
Graven images carved into
a mountainside
To bear witness
of things to come
That in the future,
this again would be done
Washington
Jefferson
Lincoln
Roosevelt
Every Pharaoh from the past
had the same pride those men felt
That their nation
was the greatest one
in the Earth
That their kingdoms
would forever remain
above the dirt
What was done before,
has been done again
Graven image idolatry ...
Mount Rushmore sin
All of a sudden there I was being led to where I did not
want to go, and I wasn't alone in this fact.
Killer bees telling us what to do, where to go, where to sit,
when to kneel and pray, how to be, telling us what we could
eat or drink, or if we could eat and drink at all that day.
Then we were all outside as a Cadillac convertible pulled up
and came to a stop. There was a woman sitting upon the top
of the backseat so she could be clearly seen. She was dressed
all in black from head to toe, only her very dark eyes did show.
I had a feeling she that belonged to all.
I stared at them and they started right back at me and my
very white skin with so much hate, thank the Lord I still was
not covered up with the dark robes that would restrict the air
that was still nice and cool around me, oxygen that filled my lungs full of life.
I was so hungry as this scene progressed, I was ready to eat
half an orange that had been discarded on the ground.
Before I could bring this piece of fruit up to my lips, a very angry
man said to me that this piece of orange was full of deadly bacteria.
Then we were standing in an arena or theater of sorts.. so many
people were packed in there as we surrounded a stage. There was
a lady dressed in a beautiful white dress, she had long flowing black
hair and as we watched her as she gestured towards a tall statue,
a pure white calf which was standing upright. The hostess sang
a pretty song which contained the lyrics, "we will worship all that is divine." Then the people knelt down to pray.
I started to kneel as well, but I being very keen of mind stood back
up quickly a I realized what was taking place.
I and the hostess seem to be the only ones who remained standing
before this graven image of worship. I knew instantly what would
happen if I remained standing before this calf.
But I all I knew is that where I was going was never going to be as
bad as where those very scarred people were right then and there.
That if they did not stand up and repent from worshiping this false idol
that their fate would be far worse than death.